#knowyourvote
The 58% Giveaway
Turnout figures for GE2017 have been released and, while not as high as previously suggested, 58% turnout among 18-24s is still something to be celebrated.
The 58% Giveaway is our way of thanking young voters for going out on June 8th and making themselves heard.
So what can you win?
The overall winner will receive:
- 101 Ways to Win and Election, a brilliant book by two experienced Lib Dem campaign managers
- Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box, an entertaining look at the answers to questions you maybe never knew you had about UK politics
- More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box, the sequel to Philip Cowley and Robert Ford’s successful first book
- YVUK’s 15 Greatest Protest Songs on a limited edition vinyl-look CD, featuring Captain Ska, The Clash and more
- Keep Calm and Know Your Vote full size poster
- Winston Churchill quote full size poster
- A £15 Amazon gift card
To be in with a chance of winning, simply reblog this post and follow YVUK’s blog. You can increase your chances by also retweeting our giveaway tweet and following our Twitter account.
The winner will be chosen at random on June 30th and contacted by PM. If there is no reply within 3 working days, a new winner will be declared.
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The most intriguing graphic from GE2017 so far. Why?
The only employment status to vote more for the Tories than for Labour was Retired.
Working Britain is being over-ruled by the old. Who’s being silenced? The young!
Every young person who doesn’t vote compounds the problem. Don’t be that person. Don’t let your friends be that person.
We will be living in this country long after the retired have passed on.
Keep on fighting. Keep the momentum. Keep shouting until young voices are heard.
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Latest YouGov poll suggests voter turnout among 18-24s much lower than expected.
This is likely as a result of the inflated figure touted by the Metro, which was in fact referencing estimated turnout in Tottenham alone (around 72%).
Turnout figures are still way up on the 2015 general election.
What the figures suggest is that progress has been made, but much work remains to really bring young voters into the political conversation.
If you want to be part of a movement seeking to do just that, check us out on our blogorour Twitter. We’re always looking for volunteers to join our team as content writers, researchers, campaigners, designers, campus reps. Come say hi!
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Just how big a difference did you make in GE2017?
This graphic, shared by @williamjordann, shows a significant disconnect between the intentions of young and old voters. We already knew that young voters overwhelmingly supported Remain in the Brexit referendum, and now a very similar trend is seen in the election results: the majority of young people voted for Labour.
We’re certainly not saying the hung parliament was entirely the result of increased youth turnout, but there’s no denying that we as an age group have suddenly moved up the priority lists of politicians everywhere. We mean something now. We’re an engaged group of voters with an almost universal political identity.
We’re a very big fish and, should Corbyn slip up, we’re seemingly ready to be caught.
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New slogan and first look at the new posters.
Unfortunately, ‘building an informed electorate through education’ just didn’t roll off the tongue so easily.
Graphics quality is of a potato right now until we start spending money on this operation so expect something a little more HD at the end of the week.
We’d also love for our followers to get involved! Design your own graphic based around our name and ‘Know Your Vote’ and receive 10 additional entries to our first competition of the summer - just tag your design with #YVUK to enter.
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New IFS research today shows that the average debt a student has on graduating university has risen to over £50,000. For the students coming from the lowest income families, this can be as much as £57,000 with £5,800 of that purely from interest accrued since starting their courses.
Under the Conservative government, student loans have been increased from £3,000 per year to £9,000 per year. Maintenance grants for low-income students have been replaced by extra loan allowance. Student loans are set to increase in line with inflation (or by £250 per year) for the foreseeable future, starting in September, regardless of teaching quality.
The IFS sees only two winners from the current system, and it’s certainly not the students who benefit. Students earning the minimum amount of repayments - which has been frozen at £21,000 for several years - are estimated to be 30% worse off than their equivalents under the old loan system. No, the only beneficiaries are the universities (although not 90% of their employees) and the government.
So what do you think, voters? How can we, as a voting force, work together to end this stranglehold the UK government has on us? We want to hear your ideas to fix what is becoming a very, very broken system, one which stifles recent graduates and the UK economy as a whole.
Young Voters UK is today officially committing to fighting Conservative policies on student finance.
Apologies for the delay in announcing the winner of our 58% Giveaway.
The winner came from the Twitter leg of our competition, at the account; @arden_breslin.
Thank you to everyone who took part!
If you want to be in with a chance of winning our political goodie bag - featuring books, posters and great music - reblog this postandfollow Young Voters UKbyJune 30th.
We’re celebrating high youth voter turnout at GE2017. Are you with us?
Long-awaited (and for once not all that long-winded) the Queen’s Speech was finally revealed at 11:30am today. So just what did it contain?
Brexit
8 out of the 24 bills in the speech related to plans for UK policy after leaving the EU. We’ve broken down the main aspects of each bill below:
- Repeal Bill – turns EU law into UK law so UK Parliament can make changes
- Customs Bill – UK takes control of import and exports
- Trade Bill – lets the UK make trade deals with other countries
- Immigration Bill – allows UK government to end free movement of EU nationals into UK
- Fisheries Bill – gives UK control of its waters and fishing quotas
- Agriculture Bill – a system will be put in place to protect UK famers
- Nuclear Safeguards Bill – creates a UK nuclear safeguards regime to replace the EU one
- International Sanctions Bill – gives government final say on imposing non-UN sanctions to the UK and ensures sanctions can still be challenged
Economy
This was a stripped back speech, with very little change in economic policy. Only 5 bills related to the economy:
- Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill – service stations will, at some point, need to install charge points for electric vehicles
- Space Industry Bill – new commercial spaceflight to be licensed, including rockets
- HS2 Phase 2A Bill – the high speed railway will extend to Crewe sooner than planned
- Smart Meter Bill – every household will be offered smart meters by 2020
- National Insurance Contributions Bill – allows for the changes announced in 2016 budget
Other
There were 11 miscellaneous policies. More notable bills include the Courts Bill, which will remove the right of partners accused of domestic violence to cross-examine their alleged victim in court.
On a similar vein, the Draft Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill will introduce new measures to protect victims of domestic violence.
For younger voters, the Data Protection Bill is very interesting - it will require social media accounts to delete information held about you at the age of 18.
What does this all mean?
Legally, not very much. Not until next week anyway, when the MPs in the House of Commons will have the chance to vote for or against each bill individually. With a majority not yet secured, there’s a chance not all of these proposed bills will pass. Even then, these are just a snapshot of proposed government policy over the next 2 years.
What the Queen’s Speech does tell us is that the Tories are not having a very happy time at the moment. A large chunk of their manifesto has gone missing:
- New grammar schools
- The ‘dementia tax’
- Scrapping triple lock pensions
- Replacing free school lunches with free breakfasts
- Energy price caps
- Voting to remove ban on fox hunting
- Means testing winter fuel payments
The suggestion is that the Tories did not think they would be able to pass these policies through the Commons - the more liberal parties were all very vocal in their opposition to these proposals during election campaigning, and even the DUP do not agree with scrapping triple lock pensions.
Through the Queen’s Speech, we’ve been given a little glimpse of the state of the Conservative Party: a monstrous papier-mâché parody of an unpopular manifesto.
![The Queen’s Speech [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/bf99fdf8ff12a413729f74701cd33750/tumblr_orw5m0yNYm1w8r8xio1_640.png "The Queen’s Speech [x]")
![The Queen’s Speech [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/99f0057ff0e3b03af6097d8dfebe7418/tumblr_orw5m0yNYm1w8r8xio2_1280.png "The Queen’s Speech [x]")
![The Queen’s Speech [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c30946a9c2f03bb07303afd01bbb3d6d/tumblr_orw5m0yNYm1w8r8xio3_1280.png "The Queen’s Speech [x]")
![The Queen’s Speech [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/8642b03f6643225ab8d0e343032d0f6d/tumblr_orw5m0yNYm1w8r8xio4_1280.png "The Queen’s Speech [x]")
They’re the focus of every political blogger today: just what is going on with the DUP.
Just last week, they were an unknown fringe party this side of the Irish Sea.
On Thursday, they looked like the most important party in Britain, that final puzzle piece that would give the Tories their majority in Parliament - if some sort of deal could be arranged.
Now? That deal looks very, very shaky.
The Queen’s Speech, after a 2 day postponement, is tomorrow. An official deal with the DUP has not yet been agreed. Without some sort of official deal in place, it will be a lot more difficult for the Tories to pass their laws through the House of Commons.
The DUP say the UK are taking them for granted. At this stage, it looks like one of the major stumbling blocks is the DUP’s demand for the removal of air passenger duty in NI (the tax you pay to fly from UK airports, payable on booking). The Tories are hesitant to consent to this in case it leads to similar calls from Scotland, Wales and England.
It looks like the public will have to wait until tomorrow to see if the DUP deal can be made in time.
Whatever’s going on, it’s certainly nothing strongnorstable.
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Who is Vince Cable?
With Tim Farron stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democrats, it’s time to look for a new leader. Enter: Vince Cable. Yes, the former Business Secretary from those heady coalition days is the first to throw his hat in the ring for Lib Dem leadership.
Which begs the question: exactlywho is Vince Cable?
For a lot of young voters, the 2010 General Election was lost to the stress of school exams and trips to the park with mum and dad. For Vince Cable, it provided a moment of glorious opportunity.
With the election resulting in a hung parliament (not unlike in 2017), the Lib Dems held the power. Cable was instrumental in the coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. He was rewarded with the role of Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
It was a role he was more than prepared for. Cable studied Economics at Cambridge and earned a PhD in the subject from the University of Glasgow in 1973. He worked in both the public and private sectors before being elected as MP for Twickenham in 1997.
So was he a good Business Secretary?
Cable’s great error (because every top-level MP will have one) was the sale of the Royal Mail, which was considered a right royal cock-up by a lot of people. In the privatisation of the Royal Mail, Cable and his team were accused of undervaluing the company, setting share prices at 38p when within a year they were selling for 70p - this potentially lost the tax-payer billions of pounds.
He did try, at least in the beginning, to curb Tory policies. When it came to the Tory plan to sell laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia, Cable refused to sign off on the deal until he received assurance from the Ministry of Defence that the Saudis would not be allowed to use them on Yemeni civilians. It turned out the MoD were in no position to promise this, but the good intent was there.
It’s also important to highlight his attitudes to big banks: he’s not their biggest fan. Calling bankers a bigger threat to the UK than trade unions (the arch nemesis of the Tories), Cable consistently criticised banker bonuses after the 2008 crash as ‘rewards for failure’.
Too bad it didn’t hold him back from agreeing to 5 years of Conservative-determined austerity and pushing the £9000 uni fee cap through the House…
What do you think? There are many who think the Lib Dems would do better to distance themselves entirely from the vote-killer that was their coalition shambles, but who knows. Could this 74 year old Yorkshireman make a good leader?
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